The Yukon Party once criticized former premier Pat Duncan's Liberal government for building a planned one-stop government shop on Quartz Road.

Now, it appears the Yukon Party regime is not only moving government departments to the structure, but planning to build a 6,000-square-foot addition to it.

'We are looking at reshuffling some of our staff around to get them all in one area so we can have better supervision,' Highways and Public Works Minister Glenn Hart told the legislature Wednesday afternoon.

'We're looking at an addition to that facility so we can combine all our people in one spot there.'

He refused to comment further on his government's plan later Wednesday and this morning.

Hart's response in the house came after NDP MLA Eric Fairclough questioned him on the movement of the contract services, information management and insurance branches of the department out of the Performance Centre on Fourth Avenue.

Phil White, part-owner of the Performance Centre, said in an interview today he had not been given any warning from the government about the pending move until it was brought up during Wednesday's question period.

However, he added he has heard rumours of the move since March.

The government's lease on the 6,120-square-foot space came up in January. White said he was told an annual lease would not be signed and the department went onto a month-by-month agreement where it's only required to give 30 days' notice of its departure.

White said he has no idea when the department will actually be moving. He added it would be nice to know so he could start looking for a new tenant and explore options for upgrading the space that's currently occupied.

In an interview yesterday, Fairclough said he suspects the move is planned for late summer or into the fall.

'They won't be moving anytime soon,' said Mary-Louise Boylan, communications manager for Highways and Public Works.

She added the Quartz Road facility is at capacity. The earliest possible date she could conceive of the department moving would be into the fall, she said, but that would depend on construction time lines.

The government won't be paying for the cost of the addition, she said.

Quadra Equities will pay the cost of building the addition as the result of a leasing agreement that will provide the department with 3,500 sq. ft. that are not presently available in the facility. The current timeline for completion of the addition is mid-October, she said.

Fairclough said the move now demonstrates government support of the Liberals' position, and that the minister has been trying to 'keep it quiet.'

The building was part of the past Liberal government's effort to create a one-stop shop of government services, including driver's licences and health care.

The building is the result of a 10-year build-to-lease with Quadra Equities that sees the government paying $607,000 a year in rental fees. By the end of the 10 years, the government will have paid more than $6 million for the building.

Premier Dennis Fentie has previously criticized the building as a 'waste of taxpayers' money,' and the Yukon Party scrapped the one-stop services plan soon after coming to power in December 2002.

Hart told the legislature the government is trying to make the best of being locked into a long-term lease.

However, the move and the building of an addition could end up costing taxpayers a whole lot more.

The government currently pays $134,775 annually for the space in the Performance Centre.

Fairclough said the rent in the new space will likely be approximately $240,000.

'We're trying to improve on the situation, as I said, to diminish the cost to the taxpayer, which is the prudent course to take, and we'll exhaust all the options to try to achieve that,' Fentie told the committee of the whole in March 2003 regarding the building.

The cost of rent in the building is approximately $31.14 per square foot.

'That's unfortunate, because that cost is substantial, and there are other things that the government could be spending money on besides rent of this type of high rate,' Fentie also told the committee.